


Artistry

by teamchaosprez



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Crushes, Enemies to Friends, F/F, First Meetings, Graffiti, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 18:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11446455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: Ballet dancer and dance major Amelie Lacroix meets a graffiti artist in an alley. Shenanigans ensue.





	Artistry

**Author's Note:**

> i have officially finished 2/3 of the oneshots i have sitting around in my documents folder in one night thank god (it's 1am help me)

The bite of the winter air was the first thing that she noticed, especially tagged onto the heat of her body coming out of the warm theater and her hair still a little wet from the shower she had just taken. Amelie shivered ever so slightly and tugged the jacket she wore a bit closer to her thin and fit body, tempted to pull her hair out of the neat bun at the nape of her scalp she had tucked it into in order to keep her neck warm but deciding to leave it as it was. Her apartment building wasn’t that far away, and she didn’t feel like dealing with it when it got all tangled by the wind.

The ballerina adopted a quick pace, wincing slightly when the thin sheet of snow that had built up on the street occasionally leaked into her flats. The neutral expression on her face turned into a grimace as her annoyance at the month of February increased tenfold, her mood worsening as she made her way down the streets with her gaze only held upward to ward off any creeps that might decide that a skinny woman walking home by herself would make a good target.

Normally, noticing someone spraying graffiti along the side of a building wouldn’t have caused a stop from the young woman, but she was already feeling the excessive urge to take her terrible mood out on someone. The person with cans of spray paint in either hand was shorter than her by at least half a foot, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood drawn over their head and leggings that were all but destroyed by splash after splash of paint. Most of their face was covered by a pair of yellow tinted goggles and a mask that probably blocked toxic fumes from being inhaled. Amelie didn’t even pause to see what they were so focused on imprinting onto the brick wall, opting instead for walking up behind them and gently tapping on their shoulder with one manicured nail.

The stranger turned around rather suddenly, and hazel eyes locked onto Amelie’s amber. She watched the person reach up to remove the mask from their mouth and nose, and the ballerina could finally tell that their features were decidedly feminine. “Can I help you, love?” she asked in a chipper Cockney accent, and she could almost feel her confusion at having been approached by a total stranger for seemingly no reason on a winter evening.

“I hope you are aware that vandalism is illegal.” She crossed her thin arms over her chest, amber eyes narrowing at the other as she very briefly glanced at the design she had been spray painting on the bricks. Admittedly, now that she was looking closer, it looked less like a splash of coloring thrown across the building for the sake of breaking the law and more like a very abstract face, with yellow skin, brown freckles, red hair. “And I get the feeling you weren’t hired by the owners to make a mural.”

_ “Vandalism’s _ a pretty strong word,” the young woman responded slowly, before clicking her tongue and apparently deciding to continue her thought. “I prefer  _ street artist. _ I know it would probably make more sense to paint in a less posh part of town, but this is where Emily grew up, so I figured it’d be nice to paint her face on a wall here instead of where it’ll probably get painted over in a week.” She seemed to be pretty proud of her logic on this, and Amelie didn’t even try to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Of course she would run into someone a little too enthusiastic about their petty crimes.

“I don’t care what term you prefer, it is still illegal, and it will probably be washed off shortly anyway,” she responded, well aware of how tired her voice sounded as she reached up to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, go ahead and finish this, I will not call the police on you. But do not be surprised if you are apprehended for destruction of public property.”

The stranger scoffed, hands on her hips in an almost sassy manner. “Please, I’ve been doin’ this for years ‘n I’ve never been caught!” She was almost overly confident in her words, and Amelie allowed that to fuel her annoyance ever so slightly as she turned and started walking down the street once more, continuing on her way home.

For just a moment, she couldn’t help but wonder the young woman’s name, but within moments of turning the corner to her street she had forgotten all about the brief interaction with the chipper, almost annoyingly chipper, street artist. She had more important things to worry about, after all.

* * *

 

Sombra’s low standards were pretty high up on Amelie’s list of least favorite things.

Most of the time, she was the one that chose where they went out on weekends, and she usually had pretty sophisticated tastes. One of the nicer nightclubs in town, usually, perhaps even a movie or a party at the home of someone her parents forced her to grow up with in a fancy neighborhood. This was mainly because she typically paid, and therefore she had control of where her budget went - however, this time around, her “best friend” had decided that the money she had received from freelance hacking was enough to treat them for tonight.

So here she was, sitting alone at a bar on the dirtier side of town and watching a very wasted Sombra dance the night away and flirt with everyone she came into contact with, male, female, or otherwise. She would probably leave her friend in the dust and just go home to sleep away the cheap liquor she had consumed thus far tonight, but she really did care about Sombra, and the last thing she wanted to do was abandon her to try and find her very drunk way home in the next few hours. So suffer through the terrible lighting and awful tasting alcohol she did.

She had all but forgotten about the graffiti artist that she conversated with briefly the week before. The young woman stuck in her mind as a beautiful face, and not much more; she met more interesting people on a daily basis. When a short woman suddenly sat down in the barstool next to her, though, Amelie recognized her young face immediately as that of the woman she had spoken to on her way home from ballet practice almost a week ago.

“Aren’t you a bit posh for this side of town, luv?” she asked in the same cheerful tone that had been in her voice when they met, and Amelie rolled her eyes ever so slightly. “Not trying to make any assumptions or anything, but you  _ are _ a bit overdressed for the occasion.” Apparently, nobody had ever taught her not to be rude to random strangers. The dancer let out a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes, halfway tempted to hunt down Sombra and drag her home. Of course she would turn out to be just as annoying on a second meeting as she had been the first time.

“My friend dragged me out here. Something tells me your taste is bad enough to come here on your own, though, with how bad you are at normal human interaction.” She had to hold down a grimace, determined to be much more classy than this woman was. “So, what have you been up to in the last week? Besides breaking laws and spraying your girlfriend’s face on random buildings.” Not that Amelie particularly cared - she would just rather talk to this woman that was harmlessly annoying instead of grabbing her by the ass or being a creep.

“Nah, pretty much the same!” her response was almost irritatingly chipper; seemingly nothing could destroy her positive attitude and Amelie didn’t want to give in the effort to try. “Em and I are having a few financial issues. We’re not sure if we’re going to be able to keep our apartment. But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” Before the dancer could tell her that she didn’t care too much about how her money situation was doing, the woman had spoken up again. “By the way, I don’t think I ever asked you for your name.”

“No, actually, you didn’t,” Amelie replied, actively attempting to sound more bitter than she had the first time she talked to her. She genuinely didn’t know whether she felt like saying her name and actually giving a part of her identity to this irritating stranger that she met in the middle of the street while she was in a bad mood. “It’s Amelie. Amelie Lacroix. I’m majoring dance at the university downtown.” She halfheartedly reached out one hand, and the younger woman took it almost too enthusiastically and gave it a hearty shake, her smile too happy to exist in a run down bar.

“I’m Lena Oxton! I  _ was _ majoring in art, but it… didn’t really work out.” She shrugged slightly, and seemed like she was about to say something else when very suddenly, and very mercifully, Amelie found herself being used as a life sized stuffed animal by a very, very drunk Sombra.

“Amelieeeee, I wanna go home now,” she slurred, apparently not caring much that she was interrupting a conversation. She shifted from hugging the dancer around her shoulders to take hold of one of her wrists with both hands, trying to pull her away from the barn.

She sighed heavily, and shrugged slightly to Lena before allowing herself to be dragged off.

* * *

 

The third time that they met, it was the anniversary of her husband’s death.

Amelie didn’t like to think about it. She was only twenty one - she was far too young to be a widow; and yet, she was, the love of her life taken from her just a year ago after a fight sent him storming out to be the victim of a hit and run incident. But given it was the first anniversary of the day she watched with horror as Gerard was struck down and killed, she felt the need to visit his grave for the first time since his funeral.

Fortunately for Lena but unfortunately for her, she walked past her while walking home instead of on her way there. Amelie was wiping the last of the tears from her face, breathing deeply to try and calm herself down, when she looked up to find a familiar young woman sitting miserably on a bench. Maybe it was her high emotions making her want to be a little nicer; maybe it was just the strangeness of seeing a young woman she had only seen being happy looking so down, but something urged her to sit down next to her and find out what was going on.

“I think it’s going to snow again today,” Amelie commented calmly, folding her hands in her lap and looking up at the dark grey sky. “Guess it’s a good day to be moody, huh?”

Apparently that was all she needed to say to get Lena to spill her guts, because almost as soon as she was done talking the younger woman admitted what was bothering her. “Emily broke up with me last night,” she announced with brutal bluntness. “She said I wasn’t pulling my weight enough, and that when I actually managed to get jobs they were too dangerous and she worried too much. So she left.”

“Ah,” Amelie nodded slowly. The news had dropped so suddenly that she wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to say. Not only had she never seen Lena upset, but she had little to no experience in trying to help people with their heartbreaks. Sombra didn’t seem to let anything get to her and was satisfied in her relationship; Gabriel jumped from his ex boyfriend to a new one insanely quickly.

However, the knowledge that Lena had emotions other than gratingly happy was enough to make Amelie sympathize with her a little bit more. Maybe it was also because she was just in a more emotional mood than she usually let herself get to. Either way, the graffiti artist seemed to be just a little bit more likable than she had been the last couple of times they talked. So she was willing to make at least an attempt to be soothing when she normally would have shrugged, said “that sucks,” and walked away.

“Well, I guess all good things have to come to an end. It was probably for the best, anyway.” She shrugged, and gulped, unsure of what she was supposed to say. “I don’t know much about what you’re going through, but… there are plenty of fish in the sea, and I know that somebody as… happy as you can probably find somebody better. Something better that you can do. It might not seem like very much, and maybe I’m not really being that comforting, but - but I know that you can find some way to bounce back.”

_ Yeah. Real comforting. Ten out of ten. _

Lena sighed, running a hand down her face. “You know, Amelie, you’re not so bad when you’re not being pretentious.” She gave a smile that was a little more halfhearted than usual, but was still better than the misery that had been showing on her face earlier.

She snorted a little. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

The younger woman gently patted her shoulder, and then rose to her feet, straightening out her shirt and giving Amelie a little thumbs up. “Well, thanks for the pep talk, but I better get going. Maybe I’ll see you around, huh? Just try to be a little nicer.”

Amelie rolled her eyes, letting out a small chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And as the younger woman walked away, the thought crossed her mind that maybe the street artist wasn’t all that bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to leave a comment!


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